


we drop our heads on the shoulders of others

by Chaifootsteps



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-02-22
Packaged: 2018-05-22 13:54:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6081852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chaifootsteps/pseuds/Chaifootsteps
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prowl and Arcee tend to each other's late night demons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we drop our heads on the shoulders of others

**Author's Note:**

> A very short thing I wrote, forgot about, then found again.

They sleep together most nights.

They do it even when they haven’t been fragging, and Primus only knows that should be a recipe for disaster. Sometimes it is.

The thing is, Prowl likes a calm night. Likes a measured recharge cycle, his datapad resting on the berthside stand, and if it’s cold, a tarp that lies just so over his waist. It’s ritual and it’s consistency and it provides a measure of comforting security that helps him nod off when his mind might otherwise be filled to the point where the seams stretch. Meanwhile, Arcee has a penchant for sprawling, for aggressive clinging; tends to hook a leg over the enforcer’s hip and heat his back with his ventilations. More than once, they’ve come to a shouting match over something as simple as who’s shifting positions too excessively or breathing too loudly.

“And really," Prowl will inevitably snap. "Why are you even **here?** ”

“ _Good question!”,_ Arcee will reply, flinging back the tarp like it's something venomous.

But in the end, they always come back to each other.

Because every so often, the multitude of things Prowl carries within his head will become too much. The spaces behind his optics will fill with needles and insects and voices of the dead. In an unconscious effort to get his hands around it, he will sit bolt upright in these moments, mumbling phrases he can’t classify and names he can’t place until the words turn to pebbles in his mouth.

And then Arcee will be the one to bring him a rag for the energon that bubbles from his nose. Distract him with small, inconsequential talk, so that the long strings of information split at the seams into something he can manage, and try to herd him back to berth.

“Come on, Prowl. Just a word or two to let me know you’re still in there. ‘S all I need.”

If he _still_ doesn’t come around, Arcee will be the one to tap him on the head or the center of the chassis. _Just_ invasive enough to annoy him.

“I don’t need your fussing, Arcee.”

“Yeah, well, little late for that." The world will feel uncanny, heavy, the hour far later than it actually is.  Arcee will know better than to let the quiet string out for too long. "You know what? Let’s do a late night cube…just a small one.”

Generally, the larger mech will be past the point of arguing against this. They’ll drink, and Prowl will power down in deliberate silence, more at ease than he'll ever admit to being. Knowing the time will come when he’ll return the favor.

When Arcee wakes up fighting.

It might begin, as it sometimes does, with a warning sound…a high, sharp, cold whimper of pure protest as phantom clasps bind his arms and sinister lines of code hit his spark. But more often than not, the smaller bot will simply spring up with wide, haunted optics, and Prowl will try to gauge how unseeing they are – how much risk he stands of being throttled if he touches the other mech.

He always stays, of course. There’s a way to handle Arcee, and there's a way to not, and he won’t use the clichés -- ( _‘He’s gone. He’s buried. He can’t hurt you now’_ ) -- no matter how much truth there is to be found there.

“Arcee. Arcee, this is Prowl, listen to me. The sun was shining this afternoon. They’d predicted rain from the wastes, but it never came. You drank your cube cold on the roof. You are safe. You are safe.”

He’ll repeat it if he has to. Repeat it as many times as it takes for Arcee to grab hold of that tie to the present for all he’s worth. Gradually, the ventilations will become deep and even, color returning to the blank canvas of his face, and the pink mech will sink down beside him and lay calm once more. If their limbs find their way around one another, there'll be no mention of it come morning.

And this too becomes a comfort. A measure of that precious consistency in the face of terrifying uncertainty.

Ritual.

Safety.


End file.
